Audio Version Of ‘The Dress’ Has Internet Hearing Two Completely Different Words

While 2015 was the year that the world couldn’t see eye to eye about a dress, 2018 has the internet divided again—this time over a voice.

An audio clipshared by Redditor ‘RolandCamry’ has gone viral because people are hearing two vastly different words from it.

Some internet users swear they hear “Yanny,” while others would give an arm and a leg to prove that it says, “Laurel.”

No one has stepped forward to reveal the answer yet, but Redditor ‘juular’ has prepared a sensible theory, just in case this debate ends up spiralling like the notorious ‘Dress’. The user believes it’s a combination of the two names read at different frequencies.

“If you turn the volume very low, there will be practically no bass and you will hear ‘Yanny.’ Turn the volume up and play it on some speakers that have actual bass response (AKA not your phone) and you will hear ‘Laurel.’”

“I’m assuming they combined the high frequencies of ‘Yanny’ with the lower frequencies of ‘Laurel’ (with some overlap), and the two words are phonetically similar enough for this to work. However, your brain can’t handle both at once, so it picks one and that is the version you hear.”

‘juular’ also deduces that older people might be more likely to hear “Laurel” because people’s susceptibilities to higher frequencies deteriorate over time.

Elsewhere, Google has weighed in on the internet war by sharing the more popular choice entered in its search bar: “Laurel.”

I'm flashing back to the white and gold dress or the blue and black dress, y'all. . .and I want to know if the people hearing Yanny saw a blue and black dress and the people hearing Laurel saw a white and gold one. pic.twitter.com/aBWpWJwzn6